The government yesterday confirmed that it intends to
de-risk its £5.4bn ID card programme by rolling the project out in
a gradual incremental way rather than take a big bang
approach.
In her first speech on ID cards since home secretary John Reid
ordered a review of the ID cards programme, Home Office minister
Joan Ryan said the project would be developed in a way that is cost
effective and makes best use of resources.
She told an industry conference that ID card infrastructure will
be built incrementally on existing projects to roll out biometric
passports, visas and driving licences.
“The philosophy I have outlined is one which builds on existing
and planned business capability and builds new capability in an
incremental way – this incremental approach reduces our delivery
risk and will keep a downward pressure on costs,” she said, in a
speech at the Biometrics 2006 conference.
The first stage, will be to ensure the Identity and Passport
Service has the capability to enrol large volumes of people. That
will be followed by developing the capability to take finger prints
of passport applications, and finally by the development of a
National Identity Register.
At the same time, the identity cards programme, which has been
presented as a stand-alone project, will be incorporated into wider
plans to improve identity management across government
departments.
The Treasury has appointed Sir James Crosby, former chief
executive of HBOS, to head a group of public and private sector
specialists to make recommendations on identity management by
Easter next year.
One option may be to use the ID cards national register, which
will hold biometric records of the population, as an index to link
personal data held in different government databases.
“Over the coming months we will be explaining the steps we need
to take to improve identity management in government. Our identity
management strategy will set out the key uses of the ID cards
scheme in delivering public services, ” said Ryan.
The minister made it clear that the Home Office planned to take
a flexible approach to the design of the National Identity
Register.
For example, she said, rather than hold biometric and personal
records on a single database, it may be cheaper and less risky to
store parts of the register on different systems.
“If there are assets and resources already available across
government which could help reduce the technical risks associated
with building a person-centric database which in time will hold
tens of millions of records, then we should look seriously at how
we can re-use them,” she said.
Detailed plans to minimise delivery risks and keep costs under
control will emerge in the coming months, said Ryan.
The minister highlighted a number of cases where ID cards could
be used by the private sector, as well as government. They include
opening a bank account, applying for a mortgage or loan, buying a
car, shopping on line, claiming benefits, and notifying
organisations of a change of address.